aid he, with some surprise, "do you play the zither?"

"Oh yes, Natalie will play you something," her father said, carelessly;
and forthwith the girl sat down to the small table.

George Brand retired into a corner of the room. He was passionately fond
of zither music. He thought no more about that examination of the lutes.

"_Do you know one who can play the zither well?_" says the proverb. "_If
so, rejoice, for there are not two in the world._" However that might
be, Natalie Lind could play the zither, as one eager listener soon
discovered. He, in that far corner, could only see the profile of the
girl (just touched with a faint red from the shade of the nearest
candle, as she leaned over the instrument), and the shapely wrists and
fingers as they moved on the metallic strings. But was that what he
really did see when the first low tremulous notes struck the prelude to
one of the old pathetic _Volkslieder_ that many a time he had heard in
the morning, when the fresh wind blew in from the pines; that many a
time he had heard in the evening, when the little blue-eyed Kathchen and
her mother sung together as they sat and knitted on the bench in front
of the inn? Suddenly the air changes. What is this louder tramp? Is it
not the joyous chorus of the home-returning huntsmen; the lads with the
slain roedeer slung round their necks; that stalwart Bavarian keeper
hauling at his mighty black hound; old father Keinitz, with his three
beagles and his ancient breech-loader, hurrying forward to get the first
cool, vast, splendid bath of the clear, white wine? How the young
fellows come swinging along through the dust, their faces ablaze against
the sunset! Listen to the far, hoarse chorus!--

"Dann kehr ich von der Haide,
Zur hauslich stillen Freude,
Ein frommer Jagersmann!
Ein frommer Jagersmann!
Halli, hallo! halli, hallo!
Ein frommer Jagersmann!"

White wine now, and likewise the richer red!--for there is a great
hand-shaking because of the Mr. Englishman's good fortune in having shot
three bucks: and the little Kathchen's eyes grow full, because they have
brought home a gentle-faced hind, likewise cruelly slain. And Kathchen's
mother has whisked inside, and here are the tall schoppen on the table;
and speedily the long, low room is filled with the tobacco-smoke. What!
another song, you thirsty old Keinitz, with the quavering voice? But
there is a lusty chorus to that too; and a